News in Brief: A National Roundup

Philadelphia Wants Stricter Graduation, Promotion Rules

Philadelphia has vowed to end social promotion and demand more from
students in exchange for a diploma. But there's a catch.

Unless the district can put in place various support programs and
services, it won't hold students to the tougher requirements for
graduation and advancement to the 5th and 9th grades. And finding the
money for that list of programs is no sure thing for the cash-strapped,
214,000-student district.

Under a five-year plan adopted this summer, the school board
committed to phasing in programs ranging from smaller class sizes to
enhanced teacher training. The package will cost $416 million annually
by 2002-03.

The first phase calls for summer school next year for struggling
students in grades 3, 7, and 11. Then, in 2000, students would have to
meet specific criteria to be promoted from the 4th and 8th grades. The
district considers those grades "benchmark years."

Starting in 2002, students would not graduate unless they had earned
a passing score on either a national test or on new citywide final
exams planned for core academic courses. They would also be required to
take two years of a foreign language and four years of both math and
science.

Nev. Toughens Middle School

Nevada's 7th and 8th graders won't be able to coast through middle
school anymore in hopes of bringing up their grades in high school. A
new policy adopted by the state school board will require students to
earn a C in their math and English classes for at least a year in order
to get into high school.

The rule will go into effect in the 1999-2000 school year. The
standards will get even tougher the following school year, when
students have to maintain the C average for 1 1/2 years.

What will happen to students who don't make the grade is still
unclear. The state education department plans to ask the legislature
for $12 million for remediation programs next year, said Keith Rheault,
the deputy schools superintendent.

It's unusual to see such specific requirements at the state level,
said Kathy Christie, a policy analyst at the Denver-based Education
Commission of the States. But she added that the emphasis on higher
expectations for middle schoolers is a growing trend.

N.C. Turns Schools Around

North Carolina's 15 lowest-performing schools all made significant
progress on state tests this year, with 13 earning exemplary status,
according to preliminary results from the state education
department.

The schools were placed under the management of state assistance
teams last year after students failed to meet expected performance
levels on tests in reading, writing, and mathematics. Principals were
put on temporary suspension, some were reassigned, and several
retired.

The teams helped teachers and administrators at each school improve
curriculum and teaching practices.

Under the 2-year-old accountability plan, the ABCs of Public
Education, the state set performance levels in reading and math for
each of North Carolina's 1,600 elementary and middle schools. High
schools were included in the school-by-school report this year.
Complete results were to be released this week.

Conspiracy Charges Dropped

A Mississippi circuit court judge has dismissed criminal conspiracy
charges against five teenagers who had been accused of plotting the
multiple shootings at Pearl High School last fall.

The judge dismissed the charges at the request of District Attorney
John Kitchens, who said it would be difficult to meet the requirements
under Mississippi law for winning convictions against the accused.

Luke Woodham, 17, was convicted in June of killing two students and
wounding seven others in the incident. He was sentenced to two life
terms for the deaths and 20 years each for the seven aggravated-assault
charges.

The July 22 ruling leaves three of the students free of any charges;
the other two still face trials on accessory-to-murder charges.

No Rise in School Deaths

Despite the spate of campus shootings over the past school year, the
number of school-related violent deaths has not increased since 1992,
and schools are far safer places to be than private homes, a report
says.

There were 42 school-related fatalities per year on average between
1992 and 1995, compared with 33 per year on average between 1995 and
1998, according to the report by the Justice Policy Institute, a
criminal-justice think tank in Washington.

In addition, 90 percent of juvenile killings occurred at home, and
children were 23 times more likely to be killed by a gun accident than
by a shooting at school, says the report, which used data from the
federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department
of Justice, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the
National School Safety Center.

Vincent Schiraldi, the director of the institute, said that
intensive news coverage of the fatal school shootings during the past
year left a false impression that violent crime on campus was
escalating. Schools, he said, are still the safest place for
children.

Chief Guilty on Cleanup

A federal district court has convicted a former superintendent in
New Bethlehem, Pa., of violating federal law by improperly removing and
disposing of asbestos from a high school.

The jury last month found David Farley, the former superintendent of
the Redbank Valley public schools, guilty of violating the federal
Clean Air Act when he failed to prevent possible exposure to tiles
containing asbestos, a known carcinogen.

Weeks after a flood damaged Redbank Valley High School in 1996, Mr.
Farley directed custodians and two students to remove tiles from the
building instead of hiring a professional contractor, said Constance
Bowden, the assistant U.S. attorney in the case.

Ms. Bowden said the administrator was also found guilty of disposing
of the tile on a nearby farm and of failing to inform the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency 10 days in advance of the cleanup
effort.

Robert Ging, Mr. Farley's lawyer, said his client, who is no longer
with the 1,626-student system, was wrongly convicted. Mr. Farley
"thought the school was asbestos free" because tiles were removed
during an asbestos cleanup in 1994, Mr. Ging said.

Mr. Farley faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. A
sentencing hearing is set for October.

Kiryas Joel Denied Again

The village of Kiryas Joel, N.Y., has lost another legal round as a
New York state appeals court affirmed a ruling that struck down the
state's most recent attempt to form a school district for the community
of Hasidic Jews.

The New York legislature has tried three times to create a district
for the community about 50 miles northwest of New York City. Most
children in Kiryas Joel attend religious schools, but the public school
district serves several hundred children with disabilities.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1994 struck down a 1989 state law
establishing a district for the village, calling it a form of religious
favoritism.

In the latest ruling, a state appeals court in Albany said the 1997
law under which Kiryas Joel's district was formed "lacks the neutrality
toward religion mandated by the establishment clause of the First
Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution.

In a 5-0 ruling last month, the appeals court suggested that because
of a separate 1997 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed public school
teachers back onto the premises of religious schools to provide
remedial classes, the neighboring Monroe-Woodbury district could once
again take over the special education needs of the village and could
send teachers into religious schools there.

Lawyers for New York state and the Kiryas Joel district have
indicated they plan to appeal.

Praying Teacher Gets Back Pay

Mildred Rosario, a 6th grade bilingual education teacher in New York
City who was fired for praying with her 30-student class, has been
awarded two weeks' pay by the city school board.

The decision last month to compensate Ms. Rosario for the time she
missed from the remainder of the school year--and her one-year
contract--was reached after the United Federation of Teachers argued
that she could not be fired under the emergency provision in her
contract because she did not present a threat to the children. Ms.
Rosario admitted to leading her class in prayer and "laying hands" on
some of the children after they had asked about the fate of a classmate
who had recently drowned.

Ms. Rosario has filed a civil suit against the school board,
claiming wrongful termination. She is seeking to be reinstated and
awarded damages.

After numerous parents protested her dismissal from Middle School 74
in the Bronx, state Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, a Democrat, introduced
legislation that would create a volunteer interfaith-chaplaincy program
in each of the state's school districts, similar to those existing in
hospitals, the military, and fire and police departments.

No Fees for Public Records

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that school officials may not
charge school board members fees for retrieving public records, as
board members are responsible for overseeing operations and therefore,
must be given all documents necessary to do so.

The ruling came last month in the case of Elaine Rathmann, a former
member of the Davenport, Iowa, school board, who has been involved in a
long dispute with district administrators. Ms. Rathmann sought notes
and draft materials relating to a proposed restructuring of the school
administration. Officials of the district had argued that finding those
papers would be too time-consuming.

The court also upheld a lower-court ruling giving a school
superintendent authority to decide when and on what issues to seek
legal help. Ms. Rathmann had argued that the school board should
approve the use of counsel, and that district lawyers should confine
their work to litigation.

Boston Truancy Rates Up

Students returning to the Boston public schools this fall will face
a new student-promotion policy that intends to crack down on
truancy.

Boston's 17,000 public high school students missed an average of 28
days of school last year, four more than the average of students in the
nation's 10 largest cities, according to a recent study conducted for
the school system.

Under the new attendance standards enacted June 24, students who
accumulate more than three unexcused whole-day absences per quarter or
12 unexcused whole-day absences per school year will not receive credit
for the course. Each school is responsible for determining at what
point a student is considered late or absent. Previously, students
received a failing grade if they missed more than 15 percent of the
quarter's total school days, which equaled 7 to 8 days, depending on
the number of days in the quarter.

Schools will be paired with local law-enforcement and human-services
agencies, create task forces, form attendance-review teams, and
establish student-support teams, according to Ken Caldwell, the
district's chief of staff.

Milwaukee Approves Charters

The city of Milwaukee has approved four charter schools scheduled to
open in the fall.

While other cities have formed partnerships with school districts to
set up charters, Milwaukee is believed to be the first municipality
that can sponsor them on its own. ("Milwaukee May Adopt Its Own Charter
Plan," April 29, 1998.)

Days before members of the city's Common Council voted July 24 to
approve the four schools, the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association
filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the city-sponsored schools.

The National Education Association affiliate argues that the state
legislation allowing Milwaukee to sponsor charter schools is
unconstitutional because it was included in last year's state budget
bill and not voted on as a separate measure--a move required by the
state constitution, said Barry Gilbert, a spokesman for the local
union. The union also argues that the 107,000-student Milwaukee
district will suffer cutbacks as students leave to attend the charter
schools. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 6 in Dane County Circuit
Court.

La. Breakup Clears Hurdle

Efforts to break up the Rapides Parish school district in central
Louisiana got a boost recently when a federal appeals panel overturned
a ruling that had blocked the move on grounds that it would frustrate
court-ordered desegregation.

A 1995 amendment to the state constitution authorized the
predominantly white northern tier of the 24,000-student district to
secede this coming school year.

The district challenged the amendment, however, arguing that the new
district would run afoul of desegregation orders. Only 13 percent of
the roughly 8,000 students residing in the proposed new district are
black, compared with 42 percent in the existing system.

In a June 26 ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 5th Circuit found that it was premature for the federal
district court to conclude that the new district would violate
desegregation orders, which have resulted in extensive cross-parish
busing. The Rapides Parish district has asked the full circuit court to
overrule the panel.

Coaches Get Libel Settlement

n Two prominent high school track coaches have settled a libel suit
against the parents who had accused the coaches of providing student
athletes with performance-enhancing drugs.

Linda and Arthur Kranick, married science teachers at the
1,500-student Saratoga Springs High School in New York, were awarded
$67,500 in last month's settlement, according to their lawyer, Richard
Hanft. They had originally sought $17 million in damages.

"What was important was not the money, but the sanctity and purity
of their names and reputations," Mr. Hanft said.

In 1994, the Kranicks filed suit against William and Camille
Karl--whose two daughters used to run on the Kranicks' teams--for
accusing them of dispensing performance-enhancing drugs to the girls'
track and cross-country teams.

The charges were aired nationally because the Kranicks have helped
the school in Saratoga Springs win a host of state championships since
1987. The Karls could not be reached for comment.

Hiring of Principal Blocked

A Cook County, Ill., judge has issued a temporary restraining order
that prohibits the local school council at Clemente High School from
hiring a principal and allows a principal chosen by the Chicago school
board to remain in the job.

Circuit Court Judge Ellis E. Reid issued the restraining order last
month in a suit filed by school board officials seeking to resolve who
should serve as the high school's principal--the board-appointed Irene
DaMota, or Betzaida Figueroa, who had been selected by the Clemente
High council.

Such councils, which include community representatives, parents, and
teachers, are empowered to choose principals under the district's
system of school governance.

In the lawsuit, Chicago school officials charge that the Clemente
council failed to fill a principal vacancy within 90 days, a statutory
requirement, and violated school board policy by rescinding Ms.
DaMota's contract. She had been appointed by schools chief Paul Vallas
in January after the 2,300-student school was put on both academic and
financial probation. Local school council members endorsed her
appointment in February.

School for Blind Faces Cuts

Nine jobs will be eliminated at Wisconsin's only residential state
school for the blind as state leaders continue to contemplate a plan to
shut the school down.

The cutback follows a 1995 state audit that recommended reducing the
teacher-to-student ratio. Enrollment at the Wisconsin School for the
Visually Handicapped has fallen over the past 15 years from 100 to 59.
The school, located in Janesville, had 28 employees before the
cuts.

Three teachers, three counselors, a psychologist, and a janitor were
laid off in mid-July, said Debra Bougie, a spokeswoman for the state
education department. A fourth teacher lost full-time status but will
continue to teach part time.

Class sizes will now average four to six students, compared with two
or three before.

State Superintendent John Benson recommended last summer that the
school be closed, a proposal the legislature continues to discuss.
("The End in Sight," March 11,
1998.)

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